


Promises

by stepantrofimovic



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Canon Temporary Character Death, Established Relationship, Fix-It, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Marriage Proposal, TAHITI feelings, cats are the best therapy, well mostly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-01
Updated: 2015-11-01
Packaged: 2018-04-29 09:34:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,226
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5123009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stepantrofimovic/pseuds/stepantrofimovic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For once, Clint Barton has got the perfect plan for proposing to his boyfriend. Until Loki gets in the way, and then there's the small matter of Phil being dead. Clint doesn't know how to cope with that. He has Peggy, and Natasha, and that helps, but without Phil, it's not enough.</p><p>Sequel to "Keepsakes". Don't get fooled by the summary, this is an unabashed fix-it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Promises

**Author's Note:**

  * For [CallToMuster](https://archiveofourown.org/users/CallToMuster/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Keepsakes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/4604784) by [stepantrofimovic](https://archiveofourown.org/users/stepantrofimovic/pseuds/stepantrofimovic). 



> This is, again, for CallToMuster, who is way too patient with me when I take ages to finish a fic (that is, always), and is not feeling well today on top of that. I hope you get better soon!

The problem with having the perfect plan for proposing to your boyfriend, Clint Barton has learned, is that no matter how many months you’ve spent detailing every moment of the day you’re going to give him that damned ring, accidents always happen.

Accidents like said boyfriend being stabbed in the back by an Asgardian with delusions of grandeur while you’re being held under the thrall of the same Asgardian, for example.

Of course, there’s a possibility that Clint’s definition of “accident” doesn’t exactly collimate with the average citizen’s. Not that Clint’s life has ever been average.

Still, nothing can change the fact that Phil is dead.

Natasha tells him what happened while they’re still on the Helicarrier, right after he’s regained consciousness. As soon as he’d been able to look at her with his own eyes, finally clear of Loki’s blue haze, he’d known something was wrong, but he hadn’t expected – not – _this_.

The only thing he manages to choke out is, “I had just bought the rings.”

Nat looks at him, the minuscule crease between her eyebrows the only sign of how much he’s scaring her right now. “I know. I was there, remember?”

Clint nods. “Yes, you were. Don’t worry, my memory’s fine. I just – I needed to say it aloud.”

She looks both relieved and pained at the same time. Clint suspects that she actually considers hugging him for a moment, but in the end she settles for a light squeeze of his hand.

When Steve Rogers ( _oh, how Phil would have enjoyed this_ ) comes in and asks if anyone knows how to fly a Quinjet, Clint doesn’t hesitate for a second.

“I can.”

For the whole battle, he can hear the little voice in his head telling him, _This is what Phil would have done_.

It’s true. It doesn’t make it hurt any less.

***

Banner is moving in with Stark, Thor’s beaming back to Asgard with Loki in tow for some sort of trial that doesn’t sound convincing to Clint in the slightest, Rogers has apparently decided to go on a road-trip to find his true self or something equally unconvincing, and Natasha – well, Natasha hasn’t been asked yet. It’s Clint’s turn now, and Stark’s grin is megawatts-bright. It makes Clint almost feel sorry that he’s refusing his invitation.

“No, thank you. I’m sorry, but I’m not coming to live in your tower.”

The way Stark spreads his hands and turns around just enough to showcase his hurt look to the others is so typical of him that Clint is almost tempted to smile. Almost. Right now, his limbs feel too heavy, and he’s becoming aware of the aches all over his body, as well as in far more metaphorical parts of him. Which is why, when Stark starts protesting, he has no qualms cutting him off.

“I’m not coming to live in your tower because I already have a place to stay. End of the story.”

Stark points honest-to-god finger-guns at him. _Gah._ “See, bird-brain, here’s where you’re wrong. Because I just so _happen_ to have access to your file, as I do to each and every one of yours, by the way – sorry, Miss Super-Spy –, and I also happen to know for sure that you have no apartment listed as yours, no names on a lease anywhere, not even an alias, which means –”

“I _know_ , Stark. That’s because it’s not my apartment. It’s my partner’s.” _Was._ _About t_ _ime_ _you_ _change your tenses, Clint._ “And I’m going back there. Right now, preferably.”

“Aha! I always knew something was going on with you. Right, right. I suppose this means that Madame X, here, is not moving to the Tower either. Pity.”

It takes Clint a moment to realize the implications of what Stark has just said. It’s enough for Nat to shift into a threatening stance. When he understands, he bursts out laughing. It’s horrible and it hurts and he can’t stop, not even when Natasha steps between him and the others and says, tone as icy as she can muster (and that’s saying a lot), “Clint is not my partner.”

Clint can see Stark gearing up for some other speculation about his love life, so he does his best to catch his breath and steel himself, even though the words physically hurt when they leave his mouth. “Phil Coulson was my partner. And he had an apartment, not to mention a cat, neither of which I have any intention of leaving.”

Stark goes eerily still for a second at that. So does everyone else.

“Wait. This doesn’t – he said there was –”

“– a cellist, which was the cover we’d agreed upon for the times he needed to keep his personal life, y’know, _personal_.” At this point, Clint is way past caring about keeping his tone polite.

Stark’s mouth snaps shut. Seriously, Clint can hear the sound of his teeth clacking together. He can also see Rogers start to move in his peripheral vision, which is why he decides it’s better to just turn on his heels and leave there and then.

It’s too far to walk home from here, but maybe at some point he’ll find a section of the subway that’s still running.

***

As soon as Clint opens the door (he takes the keys out of his tac suit’s pocket – he fought the whole battle with Phil’s keys in his pocket, _he served Loki with Phil’s keys in his pocket_ ), Peggy jumps down from her favorite perch on one of the bookshelves (the one where they store their CDs, so Phil always argues – _argued –_ it isn’t technically a _book_ shelf) and runs up to him with her tail held high. She sniffs suspiciously around his boots and ankles, then butts her head and rubs her cheek all over them, raising up on two legs to reach as high as she can. It’s their usual routine every time Clint comes home from an assignment – a way to welcome him back home that always felt as comforting as Phil’s first touch.

Usually, Peggy has to chase Clint around the apartment while he takes his gear off and stoves it away. This time, she’s already through with her ministrations before he manages to move one inch away from the door.

She follows him as he crosses the apartment in what feels like slow motion, heading towards the bathroom. Usually, she isn’t allowed inside, but this time, as Clint turns to shut the door before her, she pushes until she’s able to slip through. She doesn’t take her eyes off him for the time it takes for him to strip his tac suit away and enter the shower. When he finally steps out – he used up all the hot water, _but it doesn’t matter, because there’s no one else who’ll be in need of a shower today_ –, he finds her curled up on the toilet lid, her ears flicking towards him every time he moves.

After toweling himself off, Clint dons a pair of boxer briefs and moves to the bedroom. He lies down on his side of the bed.

Everything still smells like Phil.

It feels like someone has carved a hollow into his chest, between his ribs. Clint lies on the bed and breathes, but the air in the room feels heavy, lead-like. It presses down on his lungs and squeezes a hand around his brain, until he can’t feel his own body anymore.

When he comes out of it – whatever _it_ was – there’s a warm ball of fur curled up on his belly. Peggy is purring loudly, something she rarely does. As soon as she realizes that Clint’s more or less regaining consciousness of his surroundings, the purring gradually dies down, leaving just a pleasant hum over his diaphragm.

_How can anything feel pleasant right now?_

***

Clint doesn’t know for how long he stays there, lying on the bed. He does, however, know two things: that for all that time, Peggy hasn’t left his side (or belly, or back, depending on his position), and that at some point someone entered the apartment. From the sounds she makes while moving around the house, he knows it’s Natasha.

She still hasn’t set foot in the bedroom. If he weren’t busy crumbling in on himself, Clint would hug her for it.

***

In the morning, Natasha makes blini. Clint knows it’s morning because of the angle of the light filtering through the bedroom’s window, and he knows it’s blini because Natasha couldn’t cook anything else if her life was at stake. He hears her puttering about in the kitchen (he has to squeeze his eyes shut again for a moment, because his brain automatically conjures up the image of Phil making breakfast), and then, sure enough, the smell of batter starts trickling in.

Natasha hates cooking.

A few minutes later, Clint joins her in the kitchen. She’s piling up two plates with buckwheat blini, and has already set aside a jar of honey. ( _Of course she found some buckwheat flour, Phil loved buckwheat, so he always made sure the kitchen was well-stocked with it._ ) She must have heard Clint enter, but she makes no move until he’s pulled out a stool from under the kitchen counter. Then, she pushes one of the plates towards him, along with the jar of honey, a spoon and a fork.

Slowly, Clint moves to drizzle the blini with honey, then starts methodically cutting into the stack. Cut, skewer with the fork, open his mouth. Chew, swallow, repeat.

The only reason Natasha forced herself to cook breakfast is because she knew Clint would feel compelled to eat in exchange for her effort. Clint recognizes the plan for what it is – one of Natasha’s ever-changing ways to take care of him.

“I’m sorry. I know I’m being a burden.”

She’s sat down on a stool at his side to eat her share of breakfast, so she doesn’t even have to stretch to cuff him on the back of the head. It’s what she always does when he’s being an idiot, and she clearly doesn’t see a need to pull her punches today, because the slap stings no less than usual.

Somehow, the sharp pain is just what Clint needs to finally allow himself to break down. He lurches forward, pushing away the stool, and before he knows what’s happening he’s kneeling on the floor, trapped in the small space under the counter, sobbing. Natasha sinks down next to him. She has to pry his hands away from where he’s fisted them in his hair before she can hug him.

They spend the next hour kneeling on the kitchen tiles, Nat holding him tight, until Clint’s legs have gone completely numb.

***

_Phil can’t remember much of the early days after Loki. He remembers waking up and asking where he is. The answer contains the words “guest house” and “Tahiti”, and for some reason this scares him, but at this point his memories are scrambled particularly badly, and it hurts to go back and think about that part too hard. He remembers asking about Clint, more than once, and being told that Clint is fine, that Natasha managed to free him from Loki’s control before the big battle._

_He asks if Clint knows he’s alive. They say yes. They say his clearance has been suspended, so he won’t be able to contact him for some time._

_Phil can’t remember why he doesn’t argue right away._

***

In the following days, Clint is never alone in Phil’s apartment. Without argument, Natasha simply moves into the guest bedroom. During the day, people come and go. It’s weird, at first, to have Stark and Banner playing video games in the living room, but Clint gets used to it, as he does to everything else.

Rogers joins them after a few weeks. Apparently, his epic road trip has been cut short – Clint doesn’t know if it’s because of him, or because Cap realized that he has more chances to catch up with the modern world by living with Stark than with anyone else. Sensible conclusion, that one.

Sometimes, even Thor drops by. Peggy seems to adore him, curling up in his lap any time she can. There’s an awkward moment when, in a fit of particularly enthusiastic head-butting, she pushes Mjolnir off the coffee table. Thor gives her weird stares for the rest of the evening.

May and Hill come visit one time each, then they disappear for good. Clint can’t say he blames them.

Before Clint has time to get used to the new routine, three months have passed since Phil’s death. When he stops and thinks about it, he concludes that no, it still doesn’t hurt any less. At least, it looks like he can live with it.

It isn’t much of a consolation.

***

It’s been fourteen weeks to the day since the Battle of New York when Clint hears Natasha speaking to someone on the phone. The fact that she’s answered at all means that it must be either someone on the team or a call from SHIELD.

Clint is putting away the dishes from breakfast when he hears her go silent for a long stretch (definitely SHIELD, then, he thinks), then suddenly burst out, “ _Brutto figlio di puttana!_ ”

Years of partnership have taught Clint that while Natasha swearing in Russian always means bad things, Natasha swearing in any language _other_ than Russian is a sure sign of impending doom.

There’s another, much briefer, stretch of silence before Natasha resumes speaking. She sounds like she’s cutting someone off on the other end of the line.

“No, sir. I refuse to talk to him.” Pause. “I don’t give a fuck if that’s an order, Fury.” ( _What?_ ) “I’m going to put him through, _right now_ , and you’re going to talk to him. I’m not getting you out of any of this.”

She sounds absolutely incensed, and the look on her face as she marches into the kitchen does nothing to change Clint’s impression. She hands him the phone with a jerky movement.

On the other end of the line is, indeed, Fury. And Fury has news.

Clint stays silent as he’s told about how Phil didn’t die when Loki stabbed him – if you don’t count the eight seconds his heart stopped beating, and Clint is definitely going to think about that later and freak out, but not right now –, how he was transferred to a secure medical facility (in Tahiti, of all places) and put through surgery and intensive care. Fury says he’s getting better by the day, that he’s scheduled to start PT soon, and that he wants to talk to Clint.

Fury’s also “ _sure Clint understands the need to keep Agent Coulson’s survival under wraps_ ,” given his death’s “ _key role in shaping the Avengers into a proper team_ ”.

Clint’s only answer is, “I need to speak to him.”

“ _That can be arranged._ ”

“I need. To speak. To him. Right. Now.”

A beep follows. Fury has transferred the call.

The nurse in the Tahiti medical facility must have very good training, or maybe she’s just an angel, because she doesn’t bat an eye at Clint’s choked-off request of, “I need to speak with Agent Coulson” – which seem to be the only words he can force out right now. “ _I’ll put him through immediately._ ”

Another beep, a dial tone, and then – “ _Hello?_ ”

The voice is weak, but unmistakable, just like every time he’s heard it through the comms or in the morning when he woke up at home. All of a sudden, Clint can’t breathe.

“Phil?”

“ _Clint? Oh, thank God. I thought they were never going to allow you to contact me. I’ve been asking for days, but Nick always pulls that bullshit about suspended clearance and I didn’t – Clint? Are you crying?_ ”

***

Less than 24 hours later, a helicopter with Clint on board lands on the roof of the medical facility they’re keeping Phil in. For the next months, no one is able to separate the two of them. Clint waits while Phil goes through PT, medical exams, physical and psychological evaluations, and everything SHIELD deems necessary for him to go back to active duty.

Yes, because Phil has decided he’s going back in the field, and there’s no way anyone can stop him from doing just that. He and Fury are already planning their next project – a fast response team, specialized in dealing with powered people. Clint tries to feel jealous over the fact that he’s not going to be able to join Phil on that, given his role as an Avenger, but the thought of Phil being okay and getting to lead his own team again is too good to allow for any bad feelings on Clint’s part.

Also, Clint has a plan of his own, and he’s just waiting for the right occasion to put that into action.

***

The occasion comes in the form of Phil’s first visit to SHIELD’s headquarters after he’s finally cleared for action. He’s supposed to meet with the specialist he selected for his team – Grant Ward, whom Clint can’t bring himself to like, but that might have something to do with the fact that he’s taking the spot that would be Clint’s own if he was allowed to leave with the new team. Phil, bless him, has picked up on Clint’s dislike, and he must also have figured out the reason behind it, since he immediately asks Clint if he wants to come along.

Clint says yes, and wills himself to stay calm. This time, things will go according to plan.

Maria Hill welcomes them both in the entrance hall to headquarters. Clint can’t say he missed the place, but he did miss her, even if she didn’t tell him that Phil was alive. He knows that she’s loyal to Fury, maybe more than she is to SHIELD. It’s one of the few things he understands about her.

As they walk past the reception desks, Phil’s long-standing habit makes a welcome, if expected, appearance, and he sticks out a hand, waiting for the agent behind the counter to place a lanyard in it.

The thing that gets deposited in his palm, however, is definitely heavier than a lanyard, and of a much different shape. As Phil looks down at what is in his hand, Clint could swear he can see the glint of tears in his eyes.

After much thinking, Clint has opted to skip the box and put the ring straight in Phil’s palm. The design is simple enough – two parallel bands, titanium and copper, crossing each other on opposite sides of the ring. If one looks close enough, an arrow is engraved on one half of the copper band, and on the opposite half of the titanium band there’s the outline of a tie.

Yeah, so maybe Clint went a bit on the sentimental side there. It’s worth it, to be able to see Phil stroke his thumb along the sides of the ring, feeling the pattern. His eyes are definitely shining with tears, now – although Clint isn’t faring much better himself, to be honest.

When Phil finally raises his head to meet Clint’s gaze, he smiles his brightest smile and says, “That’s the best you can come up with, Barton?”

Clint’s smile matches Phil’s in brightness as well as in tearfulness. “Yes. Yes, it is.”

**Author's Note:**

> FYI, Natasha was calling Fury a "sick son of a bitch". And no, there's no way that could be taken as a compliment in Italian either. Also, Peggy's behavior is based on the way one of my cats reacts when I'm depressed.


End file.
